Winter light
by livulmann
Summary: Events take place in Sweden 2 years after the bomb went off at CIA.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One: Cries and Whispers

**This chapter is named after a wonderful film of a Swedish director Ingmar Bergman "Cries and Whispers". The title of a fanfic is also borrowed from him.**

She's rather worried they won't make it into hotel suite. They are stumbling every five seconds, hands all over each other, caressing, twisting, squeezing, his fingers in her hair tugging slightly, bringing her mouth closer to his in tantalizingly slow motion. He enjoys teasing and provoking her, committing his misdeeds in deliciously cruel fashion. He wants to drag her through the torture again, though now it's torture of different kind.

They are so used to pulling each other apart, so it's safe to state, they get almost masochistic pleasure from the act. They secretly seek to be split open, all fears and flaws and scars painfully visible, their vulnerability on display. Perhaps, after all it's a craving for a moment of honesty, a plea to be accepted, as so many times they were denied compassion. Nobody wants to see their ugliness; nobody can take a bared human soul. Therefore, they turn to each other; they both have some guts at least not look away, when the opposite side is bleeding white.

Even now, when the heat between them is gradually becoming unbearable, they are waltzing into emotional rawness, because in the end of a day, all they want is their strange twisted union, which crushes violently the standards of so-called "true love". Maybe, you can say they desire joining of their beings, but such definition would go against the whole nature of their relationship, it's too pompous, too "loud", too cliché. And the "thing" that bounds them, pulls them together, can't be captured or classified, it's ever changing, shifting and running like a white-hot river through their veins.

Their probably love the complexity of it all: they're pilling layers to find some new, it's never ending charade, however right in this moment, in a dodgy hotel, they are focused on more profane things…

Seems like every nerve ending in her mouth is set on fire, when his tongue is snaking between her teeth, brushing over her palate, pulling certain reactions out of her she is not quite proud of. Oh, god her need for him is overwhelming. She finds the fact embarrassing; it makes her feel as if she is a teenager snogging with her boyfriend, while her parents are having a tea party next door. She tries to show some resistance, to get her control back, so she counterattacks.

She bites his lips rather hard, sucking in the lower one, tasting his lovely plump flesh. A smug smile lurks in the corners of her mouth, when she hears a small noise, that sounds like a suppressed whimper. Oh, she too, managed strip him out of his cool posture and extract what was beneath it.

His hands become bolder, sliding down her spine. He was testing waters before: two years of separation burned a cruel statement in his mind he wouldn't see her again, therefore for the past two hours he's been desperately trying to assure himself of her presence. No, she is not a product of his scarred consciousness. She is real, flesh and bone, and he better take advantage of the situation.

As for Carrie, she finds herself pretty in tune with his intentions. She wants to make his bones rattle, she hungers for the intensity that shoots like bolts of electricity, the intensity she can experience only with him.

While her palms are roaming behind his back, nails scratching lightly on his scalp, and her mouth is invading his, flashbacks of their first time together appear behind her eyelids.

The night he fucked her in the backseat of her car, she was trapped between him and white leather, pressed firmly by his body, while his hips moved sharply, keeping a steady, but quick pace. His pupils were glued to hers, his gaze drilling into her skull, as Brody moved in and out of her, breathing noisily through a slightly opened mouth. She saw animalistic lust burning in his eyes, finally freed by alcohol, tension unraveling. Strangely enough, his fierce passion didn't scare her, on the contrary, it actually turned her on.

Everything about that night was wrong, everything was deeply corrupted about the two of them. She was shagging a married man, a supposed-to-be-terrorist; acting like a traitor, and couldn't force herself to care more. Even though she crossed the line, she truly loved the wrongness, the maliciousness of the situation. She was misbehaving; breaking taboos, the dirty and forbidden nature of their intercourse aroused her to no end. Hence it took him only few additional pumps to finish her off…

Memories of that night leave her, when he pulls away to fish the key from a pocket of his jeans and open the door, leading to the suite. Once they enter the room, he claims her lips back, hands grasping her ass, fingers digging into her hips, while he is holding her close, rooting into her leg. Her carnal desires stir immediately at the feel of his erection, mind running overdrive with various scenarios.

She is soaking wet already and his seductive moves are only making it worse. He tries to use friction between their bodies to get some relief, she punishes him with a bite on his lower lip. Her playful aggression is followed by an involuntary moan he breathes into her mouth. She finds it sweet, almost innocent.

Innocence is unluckiest virtue for him to own. Years of torture had numbed him to a degree he became immune to emotions, disintegrated, mind separated from soul. He wasn't aware of his feelings, they had life of their own somewhere in the darkest well of his psyche. There were days, when repressed anger, frustration and pain would leave their gloomy shelter and burst out in explosive waves, scaring his family, confusing friends. The mask of decency would slip away just a little showing the beast behind it…

His violent outbursts drove his wife and kids away from him, securing the wall of isolation he had built through the years of his incarnation. Nevertheless, solitude became both his curse and salvation: he was terrified to open up; fearing possible dreadful consequences of honesty, so he created this glorious persona of a war hero that had nothing to do with a deeply diseased man behind it.

He was secure, as long as he kept his mouth shut, although every time he reached his limits a scream of desperation was struggling to get out, dying prematurely before the smallest sound could escape his lips.

Then, when things had gone completely out of hand, when the cracks in his marriage had become painfully obvious, the fate decided to stab him once more.

Carrie Mathison rushed into his life with a force of tornado. No excuses, no compromises: he was simply swept away. His lust for her, his infatuation with her took Brody by surprise. For a long time he couldn't even let himself contemplate the possibility that a few nights they'd shared together were beyond accidental sex. He preferred playing safe, lying through his teeth, avoiding confrontation. He relayed on escapism- it was the easiest way to get away from his restless mind, filled with images of his torturous past and rotten ideals, in which he no longer believed, but still carried all of them like a burden.

It took him awhile to finally let go and surrender to the tidal wave. His mind kept whispering that it was a bad idea to reunite with Carrie, to fall under her charms again, but he simply could not resist. They were painfully connected; they were bound through pain, loss and deepest sadness…

There is bitterness right at the moment, too, in spite of the fact that his fingertips are running up her leg, feeling the rough fabric of her jeans. Slough and want mixed together make him wild and desperate. Constant fear of their inevitable separation sends shocks through his body, although it feels good, because he's finally alive. He doesn't need to keep his emotions in check, not with her.

Then, even being torn by a nagging reminder their safe universe soon will be crushed by reality (as always), he manages to smile. And she smiles back and he feels that inseparable connection again, like golden threats are stretched between their chests, and the heat that rises in his heart radiates towards her.

However, as many times before, the paradox interferes in his perception of things. Besides, utter fascination and tremendous respect for her, he's also possessed by the need to have her in the dirtiest of all possible ways. He's driven by two opposite forces, but somehow isn't shred to pieces and doesn't feel conflicted. On the contrary, his determinacy to "fuck her" (yes, it's the best word to describe inappropriate and madly arousing images, that are swirling in his head) goes hand in hand with an absolute devotion, which he's never thought he could be capable of.

Sacred and profane coexist within their relationship which he finds deeply satisfying. He doesn't need pretense to please her, he doesn't even want to please her, because she accepts him no matter what, therefore there's nothing to gain from her, nothing to take from her. He doesn't have to fit himself into her standards, as well as she can express herself freely without a fear of harsh judgment.

At last after years of cruelty, he is loved and can offer his adoration in return. Of course, he isn't that naïve to believe their love could heal them, but he hopes for a slightest possibility of happiness, he is holding onto it, his grip like vices.

Her tongue is tracing his lips in a very distracting manner, so he is forced to come down from hypothetical heights back to reality, though it's not like he minds her seduction. For past few minutes he's been solely on the receptive side, enjoying it, however he thinks about heating things up.

She always trusted him with her body. They were suspicious, while playing their dangerously engrossing chess game and trying to outwit the other party, but all of their surmises magically vanished, when sex appeared on the horizon. Was it hypocrisy? Perhaps, it was. They shamelessly cheated before, and he applies the same good old method in the hotel room: he slides his hand under her T-shirt, rushing with the things, spurring on passion.

His calloused fingers are moving gently, working their way up her torso. She suppresses involuntary trembling, that is caused by his caress, but can't hold a breathy exhale when he palms her breast under a cup of a silky bra. It's good to be claimed and touched by him, to be nailed by his pupils that are blown wide with lusty greed. His uncompromising fervor strikes sparks in her groin and she wreathes, as if trying to escape from his tight grip.

His lips like his digits are drawing patterns on her skin, running up her throat, sucking at her pulse point. He wants to mark her, even if possessiveness is predictable, but they can allow themselves insignificant trivialities like this from time to time, can't they? He makes sure he's left a visible hickey just below her jaw- he seeks the feelings of this night to be imprinted, he wants her to _remember_…

While his mouth is lazily tracing elegant lines of her neck, he extracts yet another gasp from her by rolling her nipple between his index and forefinger. Her heart trembles under his palm akin to a bird caught in a maw, revealing the vulnerability that fascinates him. There is intimacy not just in physical sense, but emotional closeness, too, which makes his yearning for her almost painful.

His tight embrace robs her of oxygen; still she doesn't want it to end: she could melt in his hands, as the sweetness that spreads from the knot in her stomach to her limbs is overwhelming. She pulls him back from the crook of neck and kisses him desperately, absorbing his lips with her own, tugging on his shirt impatiently. Her smiles at her restlessness, but is happy to comply, helping her unfasten the entire row of bottoms and pull the fabric away from his shoulders.

Her eyes take in the sight of his bared chest covered in scars, his damaged, beaten flesh doesn't repel her or cease her desire, she finds his injures strangely compelling. They tell stories of his past, the past she isn't part of, the years, when his pride was crushed by cruelty and daily suffering that turned him into man she knows. She grazes vicious patterns inflicted by anonymous butchers (she would rip their heads off without a second thought, no sympathy for them on her part) and thinks about the circumstances, that caused this lines of conjunctive tissue. If she only could take his pain away… But these are just words, possibilities lost in time, so she concentrates on pleasuring him instead.

Her lips and tongue follow the path of her fingertips, leaving wet traces on his heated skin. He shudders not strictly at the erotic tension that sparks in the air of the small suite or her skillful touch. He has never experienced greater openness than he experiences now, she's breaking through his defenses, penetrating his mind, his being, but somehow he feels liberated, relieved and secure. This liability could wound them both, however it doesn't at least this time. They are moving towards each other like two planets whose orbits have crossed, and they're going to crash in their fateful urge to be joined together.

She never had a chance to taste him fully not even during their night in the cabin or the interrogation, when she confronted him with the lies he'd created, got him doubting his own identity and saw him falling apart. He had become her greatest obsession and she tried so many times to crawl under his skin, but here in the tacky suite she's finally breaking the shell, reaching his essence. Although no words have been spoken, there is unnamable change and just like him she feels it, too. She has no clue where this sudden shift will lead and she's not in the mood to analyze. He's a scattered glass-she's perfectly aware of the cracks that divide him, and though she won't admit it, their mutual fixation spins around destructive nature of their relationship they're both addicted to…

Then she dismisses any thoughts that enter her brain and lets instincts take over. Carrie pushes Brody boldly on the center of his chest and he collapses back against the edge of the narrow bed. She climbs on top of him, nibbles at his neck, driving moans from him. He tries to lie unmoving, but can't ignore hot tides that flood his body every time her teeth sink into his flesh or when she draws circles with her tongue setting his skin aflame. He struggles to keep his primal urges under control since in addition to licks and bites she starts grinding into him and he lifts his hips as an answer to her suggestiveness.

She feels his erection straining against fabric of his jeans while her pelvis is rising and falling in unsteady rhythm. Wanting to tease him more she sets a slow sway, punctuating every move with a hard grind. She has some effect on him: his breath hitches in his throat, his nostrils are flaring, and something inhuman rises from the depth of his eyes. With a twist of his lips that turns his face into a feral mask he grabs her and subverts their positions, pressing her into the matrass. Such assertiveness would scare anyone else, not her, she experiences mind-blowing rush of adrenaline, very similar to excitement she felt, while Nazis were chasing her and Brody.

He watches her face and sees reflection of his own wild expression: her hair scattered on the pillow, her mouth slightly opened, her pupils dilated. He invades her lips, pinning her down and she arches into him surrendering to the sweet temptation. However he doesn't intent to prolong this relatively innocent prelude and frees her from her clothes leaving her in the silk knickers.

She's stretched along the bed, nearly fully naked, nailed by his steadfast gaze. He sustains unwavering eye contact, while his palm travels down her breastbone, digging in short nails, leaving long lines that are vanishing quickly. Her skin prickles where he scratches her and she's positive she won't handle well this delicate and exquisite mixture of pain and pleasure. She manages to keep her face impassive; as she avoids revealing her weakness and giving him what he craves, but despite her best efforts she fails to calm her breathing.

He smirks wickedly, his pupils still burning holes in her skull.

Then his hand goes lower, he's not shy anymore and doesn't even bother with politeness. On days, when they weren't fighting against each other, but went out about their feelings, he used to be vaguely careful, almost worshipful around her. Four years after their "first time" in the backseat of her car Brody eventually rebuilt his faith in his own ability to act upon his passion without turning into complete barbarian. So what she sees unraveling is far from roughness and cruelty- through her he takes the last step towards pieces of himself that were cut out, and she knows her trust won't be violated.

Quite soon his fingers that were brushing the smooth contours of her abs are replaced by his lips, giving her taste of her own medicine. She overwhelmed with sensations that are coming as landslide burying her under their pleasurable heaviness, and she barely hears the sound of the ripping fabric, when he tugs down and removes her knickers in one swift motion. He continues his ministrations, deepening in, slowing swirling motions of his tongue, and she anticipating the predictable. She would be lying if she said that idea of him eating her out had never crossed her mind. However, those flashes of images usually repressed by more rational parts of her consciousness could be merely considered as fantasies.

She watches him getting lower and lower, his copper head nearing to her core, poking in between her slightly bent legs-probably the most erotic view she's ever witnessed.

Then the lighting of his first touch strikes her.

He plunges his tongue into her, deliberately circling her wet opening, teasing her with piston-like strokes. Her scent feels his nostrils forcing his arousal to a new level just like does the whole situation of being close to her, observing her reactions within a very intimate distance. She starts squirming and he restrains her hips with both arms, his heart pounding loudly in his chest. Her whispers and her cries that are bursting in the silence of the bedroom, incoherent animalistic growls which are leaving her mouth are stealing all of his focus, his mind suffering from overdose of hormones, explicitly and emotions. He desires her release, even though he can't explain the yearning.

His mouth finds the bundle of nerves; his teeth grazing it lightly, while two digits enter her vagina ant start the rocking rhythm that provokes her even more. He thinks he can't handle the combination of her wanton sighs and slippery sounds that appear from the contact between his fingers and her body. His loins are burning with frustration-he could climb the wall, nevertheless he keeps delaying his own gratification- his need to see her crumble surpasses any physical tokens.

Her wild responses feed his ego, so when her palms are blindly grasping at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer (as if there is any space left between the two of them), he doubles his efforts with vigor.

They are dangerously entwined, she thinks in the heat of her passion. Somehow he always manages to pull her apart from the inside out. Maybe, he's not all conscious about his decisions, maybe he is roving in the darkness, but he also has a sense for her soft spots. Although the fact disturbs her she must admit she loves their game, even their constant suspicions and mistrust that is part of their mutual attraction. They share a deadly addiction, the itching need for danger, which turns them into quite obsessive lovers. Their true motives are never verbalized, so that they succeed to avoid banalities and cheap sentiments. Currents of emotions that run through them, always sharp and surprising, bruise them mercilessly, providing what they crave- intensity.

He knows she is close: her inner walls are sucking in his digits, her nails biting into his scalp; however her progressing breathlessness and jerking limbs are not enough for him. He wants more. "More'' is an unidentified feeling curling in his chest that leaves him greedy, unsatisfied, restless. He laps at her with a vim which is met by her sudden roughness as she moves her hips in a bold slightly aggressive manner.

Then after a few heated moments she arches her back finally giving what he wants-her absolute surrender. With her gasp comes the flow of her sweetness that he smugly detects, a wicked grin playing on his lips.

It takes her sometime to recover, so when euphoric haze that clouded her mind vanishes she brings him closer, kisses him deeply, forces her tongue into his mouth, while reaching for his jeans and unfastening them quickly. Her hand crawls inside unzipped pants, her fingers slowly and deliberately trace the outline of his straining cock. She notices the hardness and the warmth beneath her fingertips, finding him irresistibly delicious. He awakens the primal lust in her she can hardly control. She isn't interested in romance: she wants to throw him against the wall and shag him.

Since she has a burning desire which she isn't ready to ignore, she goes for her goal, sliding her palm under the waistband of his underwear, gripping his member firmly. She starts pumping him, feeling ripples of shiver that quake Brody, as he presses himself into her, burying his head into the crook of her neck, breathing softly, warming her skin with hot puffs of air.

Part of him wants her to continue and get him off, but he not necessary seeks a momentary satisfaction: he stops her, pulls her hand out of his pants.

He gets rid of the rest of his clothes easily and crawls between her legs, erasing a slightly concerned look from her face, as she's started to believe she'd repulsed him somehow. Whatever doubts have been, they are replaced by strange calmness, neither of them can explain. They're both extensions of each other, but in non-conventional way, no clichés could be applied for the feelings that swirl between them, the emotions are both transcendental and dramatic, they leave deep cuts, instead of being idealistic. Perhaps, in the eyes of occasional observer they're nothing more but fucked-up wrecks, obsessed with self-inflicted pain, whether it originates from their destructive relationship or their damaged selves.

However, it's only half of the truth: there's undeniable honesty and purity in their embrace, acuteness to their passion. They pilled their skin off long ago, probably that night in the cabin and took ultimate price of openness, jumping from the rooftops of sexual attraction right to the depths of their fatal sentiment. They could have kept distance, stayed detached, but consciously or not let their hearts to be affected, when the affair took a turning point from physical intimacy to mutual infiltration.

She thinks she's paper thin and see-through even now, staring into his storm-blue eyes. Is her brain scanned? How many unknown motives does he have? Powers of her high-functional mind stir immediately, ready to kick in and ruin the bubble of trust they've created, when the other voice in her head exclaims: "For God's sake!"

She undergoes a short argument with different parts of herself, particularly with the one she calls ''unforgiving professional". It keeps barking about "being fooled again", but can't stand a battle against the hot prick barely brushing her inner thigh. (Well, yeah, she is _**that**_ primitive).

Her legs come up around his waist, her message pretty clear- he doesn't need to be asked twice, he eagerly pushes in. Brody utters a breathy gasp right at the minute, as her walls swallow him. A few racy words pour from his mouth, before he adjusts to the feeling of her flesh around him. It's been awhile- he savors the moment, then starts moving smoothly, his hips going back and forth in endless pattern.

He nips at the delicate skin between her breasts, leaving wet traces, never breaking the rhythm he's set below. His tongue slides down her breastbone and switches to her right nipple, wrapping itself around it. He has never thought he would get so much pleasure from slowly blooming sensuality; he drinks _her_ with every pore.

She enjoys it, too. She feels him growing thick inside her, the particular sensation engulfing her nerve endings like lava. As results of her growing arousal hyperventilation constricts her lungs, she's gaping akin to a fish, not being able to hold back unintelligent sounds of a cavewoman; however they're just unnecessary details, as the only thing that will be imprinted in her memory- his painfully bright eyes, radiating the impossible heat.

Unlike her, he's very into noises. They trigger instinctive responses which are gradually absorbing his control, turning him into a man possessed. He seeks to hear more of her cries, increasing the tempo, muscles of his back sore from physical activity, but even ache comes to fuel his passion.

He mutters a muffled "fuck" against her right breast, when she tentatively squeezes her inner walls around him. Seeing him come undone thrills her like anything else: she repeats her ministrations, watching him, anticipating a change in his voice that is usually so quiet, so calm.

They both are trapped in succession of erotically charged reactions, that master their bodies and oxytocin- altered minds. They attack, they get provoked, they surrender.

As she continues to spin in their insane battle, her nails are trailing down his spine, adding some new tones to the palette of his scars, (though the marks she leaves make him shudder with pleasure) finally embedding themselves in his taunt buttocks, molding his flesh. Damn, she had a thing for his ass since saw him drying his lean body with a towel the day they asked her to take the surveillance cameras out of his house. She had never been attracted to voyeurism, but suddenly her pupils were glued to a computer screen, tracking his every movement. She noticed a leak of wetness between her tightly squeezed thighs, while she scrutinized his form, and she knew pretty well that her arousal was unacceptable. It didn't stop her from desiring him beneath her calm and collected façade of a CIA agent. She even allowed herself quick and hot masturbation once, right after their meeting in the rain. She wondered later if he did the same…

She has always been driven to him sexually, she realizes now. At first, all that she wanted was nice shag, a hard cock of his, nothing deeper than tasting a body of terrorist. Rough coupling in a dark alley would suffice, however she got caught in her little dirty play, all her smartass strategy going down the loo.

From the moment he had shown her his scars (and not physical ones)-she was bound to him.

Now she is transfixed by his gaze, by the power of that fateful connection, which dissolves her skin, her muscles, her nerves along with intense satisfaction that ripples from her core to fingertips. When she thinks it gets any better, he hits the right spot, smashing their pelvises together, and she comes, her scream swallowed by his soft mouth. As she rides aftershocks he traces her lips with his tongue, a caress so tender, she barely pays attention. However, she is well aware of his hardness still filling her. He hasn't reached his peak yet, looms over her unmoving and she throws her hands around his neck, pressing him into her body, feeling his muscles giving in. He's like hot wax rolling in her arms, submitting to her again.

"Do you want to stop?" Her own words echo in the corridors of her mind, but she won't stop, especially not tonight, therefore she suggestively tilts her hips up, and with her invitation he renews his trusts.

Initially he sets a slow pace, but after a few pumps a dump finally breaks, and he goes absolutely wild, slamming his shaft in and out of her, over and over, the headboard bumping loudly against the wall, the bed creaking under their weight. She can't complain, because he drags her into fierce passion and quite soon she's writhing, and moaning, and grunting. He locks her hands above her head in order to curb her overexcitement, eagerness and dangerous spark in his eyes turning her on, so that she hooks her legs over his shoulders letting him go as far as he can.

She is pulsing around him, milking him and it doesn't take much for him to let go. He gushes into her with a choked cry, triggering her third climax, her eyes wide open.

Later on they lie in bed, their limbs still entangled. He's drifting off, warming the back of her head with a steady pattern of exhales and inhales, when she's awake, thinking. After he falls asleep, she will leave.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: _**Through a glass darkly**_

Her brain is continuously bombarded with excessive amounts of ideas, she tries to write them down, but they are slipping through her net, raising her anxiety. Fragments of thoughts – on white paper, on magazine covers, on cereal boxes, useless efforts to organize her destructive enlightenment - and she ends up catching tiger by the tail. Her claustrophobic mind is eating her alive, but she dazed by its deadly venom. She hasn't slept for days, she can't sleep, won't sleep, while serving her paranoia, so she leaves her flat, drags her feet to a local store. She hardly realizes the amounts of caffeine that have been loaded into her system already, but her insatiable neurons are screaming for more. Following the craving of her cells she buys another jar of coffee which probably will be finished before the dawn.

She's been off her meds for weeks, she's been doing fine and nothing, nothing can knock her confidence. Mania wraps itself around her like cocoon, weaves immense tissue of lies that will choke her in the end. She knows the symptoms, but won't admit her failure. After all her fears have been buried, she is floating…

How could she give up a sense of power that comes with her illness? What about her insights, her creativity? The feeling of being thrown into some kind of race pops up in her head from time to time, spurring her on even more so than the mental flow. She intends to stay at her peak as long as her body tolerates the abuse, as long as her mind is able to produce ideas, detect correlations, formulate presumptions.

It's vicious circle of euphoria that leaves her unsatisfied, always longing for ecstatic bursts of energy which rise from her very core, pull her out from predictability and boredom . Even though the flame that once fuelled her mind incinerates her, she stubbornly goes after foolish hopes and ballooned ambitions. Wolf pits-where she usually finds herself in the end, seem to be some kind of punishment for her arrogance and her wicked desires.

At her high she rarely thinks of events that brought back her rebellious side and pushed her to neglecting her safe routine.

She got a call from Maggie 6 weeks ago. Words announcing a death of someone who was almost like a father to her( her mentor, her friend) slowly made their way through corridors of her mind, a realization finally crushing her, as her body refused to acknowledge the tragedy, her eyes dry, her back straight and rigid. Her response sounded somehow mechanic and emotionless, she manage to squeeze a few trivial phrases, rushing with ending the call, her despair palpable under a perfectly carved mask, beneath a calm and collected voice, but only for her.

She spent hours seating on the edge of a bed, staring into space. Tears never came, while sorrow flayed her in the silence of a room, immense thread of agony absorbing her. She was wrapped in some kind of emotional cement, paralyzed.

The loss had ripped some major part of her being and she knew she was handicapped for life. Nothing could ever soothe her or make those cuts less damaging – she carried the foetus of her grief inside herself, in the depths that no human soul could ever reach.

Then after a silent disintegration came a landslide.

She threw herself into heavy drinking for three entire days, punctuated only by a growing number of empty bottles, dogging Maggie calls and rare sparks of consciousness, which were enough to draw a conclusion she had reached her bottom.

On the fourth day Carrie woke up with a strange feeling that wires had stopped, she could finally get out from the death machine still dragging her feet like a wounded animal.

The only detail from that morning framed in her memory was a reflection of her own face in a bathroom mirror. She didn't recognize it, not because of some physical change (she had seen hangover caused swollenness before), but there was a shift in a woman's eyes which made her stop and look more intently. It took her a few moments to grasp the essence of her sudden confusion, however when she did, realisation stabbed her like a dagger, sharp and precise. She was dissected by the death of her true and only friend, covered in cracks that continued to spread and deepen, causing calamitous self-alienation.

Part of her that hated pity kept erupting with anger and frustration, not willing to accept the rules of some sick play, where she was plugged in. She had a strong urge to drag CIA suckers balls all across America. The hypocrisy of their excuses ("we understand importance of your mission and don't want you to be distracted") made her flinch with disgust. It was clear they'd tried to avoid so-called "Carrie's hysterics" by keeping her ignorant as long as it was possible so that there was no chance she would not miss Saul's funeral.

Just another bunch of assholes were cutting her out. David Estes used to treat her like a piece of crap perhaps the new authorities decided to stick with an old tradition…

Her angry outbursts gave her drive she needed to escape unwelcoming reality and concentrate on her task, while ignoring emotional cancer that was metastasizing, percolating through the walls of her stoicism.

At first she considered destroying her analysis simply for sake of revenge, but she neglected the possibility almost immediately, as acting upon her personal interests and emotions would be hasty and even dangerous, regarding the situation. She doubled her efforts instead, committing herself to her goal, all of her nuisances abandoned.

Her days were orbiting around the mission, which was a great distraction from her crumbled and devastated soul. Once again in her life she needed complete detachment and a role of professional voyager brought her long-awaited relief. She put her targets under a microscope, secrets of a few well-known public figures unrevealing before her eyes, hidden motives slowly bubbling up into surface.

The coldness of her emotionally sterile mind that waltzed gracefully through countless data swiftly catching correlations filled her with delusive sense of power. It lured her into carelessness.

It was an easy slip, considering her unleashed rebelliousness combined with undying strive for wholeness. She gave up the burden of her medication that was a shameful evidence of her weakness, her inability to deal with banal situations and daily issues which she could hardly accept. Of course, she saw no need to inform Maggie about termination of her treatment, as obviously her sister wouldn't be thrilled at all.

At the beginning she was very careful, meticulously tracking mood swings, making notes in her diary, finally eating healthy and getting enough sleep. Her life had reached plateau – there was nothing, but a gravy landscape ahead. She'd lost the two men, she loved the most, had survived, tried to make a decent parody of living, but was feeling old.

Then when she thought nothing could ever touch her again, she stumbled into Brody or, more accurately, he found her.

She barely remembers their conversation in a taxi on their way to the hotel; however provocative scenes that appeared later are carved in her memory.

She's lost count of days: flashing images of the night are mashed with accidental snapshots from long gone mornings and afternoons, and she is sucked into a mental hullabaloo, floundering through the chaos of her thoughts.

A steady-growing disorder which devours her neurons as a watercolour stain makes it nearly impossible to concentrate. She jumps from subject to subject, from theory to theory, giving up to the poisonous thinking, looking for breadcrumbs of notion.

Obsessed, exited, always anxious and insatiable, she needs more data, more sleepless hours for her analysis, more caffeine. Her brain is draining her off with rapacity of a leech, but she's too engrossed with her puzzle to notice or even care. She's clutching her jar of coffee, marching forward, never turning back.

Her unsteady gait – what unsettles him in the first place, after her figure catches his eye in the crowd. He presumes maybe she's drunk, a particular thought makes him uncomfortable and a little desperate, as he proceeds through the ever-changing stream of human flesh. They're both emotional illiterates and when reach their limits tend to response with nihilism and extreme antics, choosing turmoil over reasonable behaviour. He senses she is tilting on the edge ready to jump off the precipice right into the dark matter. The prospect of what might happen to her smashes glass in his head.

He quickens his pace, Goya-like images present in his mind-eye. Tentacles of his concerns are rapidly engulfing his being, squeezing him in their claustrophobic embrace. His breath – a sequence of short inhales and exhales pumping through his chest, forming a sickening knot behind his sternum.

When he finally approaches her, his hand reaches for her shoulder to make sure the body beneath his fingertips won't dissolve, slip away from him. The fear of losing her curls somewhere inside his thalamus, scratches and whines…

She nearly jumps off her skin at his touch.

"I'm sorry I've scared you," he rushes with apologies.

"Well, we tend to bump into each other rather unexpectedly."

He smiles, his pupils taking in her thin frame and face.

"Besides, I like surprises," she gives one of her flirtatious looks slightly leaning into him.

He would be flattered, if not the circumstances. He sees dark circles around her eyes, lines of her cheekbones stand out sharply and her paleness alarms him even more.

"Are you still chasing the bad guys?"

"Yeah. And I'm close to… cracking the case."

When she speaks about her work, the best aspects of it – the adventure, the mind-blowing rush, the danger and mysteries, her eyes lit up with excitement, however right now there is something more. He can't put a finger on it, although a change in her mood is obvious.

The restlessness ripples through her, twisting her mouth – she purses her lips, bites and chews them viciously, the restlessness draws lines between her eyebrows and across her forehead, the restlessness is in her slightly crooked fingers that jerk and dance in the air, moving in a rhythm of her words.

Her intensity that shoots with sparks of exclamations and expressive gestures, when she tries to explain something, fumbling through her monologue, dropping ideas and occasionally forgetting them, knocks him out of balance. Nevertheless, he keeps his face straight.

Words escape his mouth before he has a chance to rethink them, find a better excuse for lurking his lover into her apartment, opposing her and pouring out all of his concerns that fill his skull with white noise.

"Since you're doing so well, how about a cup of coffee?"

She looks down at the metal object in the grip of her left hand, finally remembering where she is and what she's doing. Her memory reproduces the image of her bedroom: piles of papers on the floor, photographs of the targets on the walls, her duty calling for her. However, her mind is unfocused, chasing deferent opportunities, so that she ends up being fished by an incidental impulse. In this moment of time she wants to be with him, screw all the terrorists and CIA. She brings herself respite only to dive into something no less thrilling.

She grabs his hand, encouraging him to follow her.

''Come with me".


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**: The Silence  
"I am dead. No, that's wrong. Melodramatic. I'm not dead at all.  
I'm past living with this. I've given up. I can't stand it anymore. The days drag by. I'm choked by the food I swallow, the shit I get rid of, and the words I say. The daylight that shouts at me every morning to get up. The sleep which is only dreams that chase me. Or the darkness that rustles with ghosts and memories. Has it ever occurred to you that the worse off people are, the less they complain? At last, they are quite silent. Although they are living creatures with nerves, eyes and hands—vast armies of victims and hangmen. The light that rises and falls heavily. The cold that comes. The darkness. The heat. The smell. They are all quiet."  
– **Ingmar** **Bergman**, _Passion_ _of_ _Anna_

He watches as the last stripes of a sunlight touch her hair and a little triangle of skin between her left eye and a peak of her upper lip. His hands embrace his shoulders and he's trying protect himself from what's coming, an unavoidable disaster of words he must say, the truth he must proclaim. Sentences, unfinished phrases, syllables heavy on his tongue, stuck in his vortex.

He spied on her right after they'd got into her apartment. Through the crack of a slightly opened bedroom door her devastation was staring at him. He saw piles of paper, strewed all over the floor, hidden beneath the sheets of her unmade bed, her nervous handwriting marking every white piece that was suitable for notes, the penmanship breaking, rising and falling. Those blue zigzags along with five coffee stained mugs and general messiness, which was quite the opposite to the rest of her precisely clean and tidy rooms, only confirmed his worst presumptions. However, despite all the facts he found himself in denial, holding on to some ridiculous hope, counting more or less absurd reasons like prayer beats.

He was full aware of the symptoms of her illness, because of the books he'd been buying ever since had managed to set up a relatively safe life in Canada. They appeared to be a thin thread connecting him to his past or he just preferred to see them that way. The more he learned about bipolar disorder, the deeper he could dive into her. Deeper? It was not entirely true. He was looking for an escape from reality he couldn't stand and he hated himself for weakness. He let his mind get seduced by an absurd idea of their reunion, acting as if their separation wasn't a terminal thing. He often found himself gritting teeth at his own foolishness.

Was it better to amputee his false expectations once and for all or let the gangrene spread and deepen? He'd chosen the second option, despite the repulsion he felt towards his own behavior.

He was struggling to find a reasonable explanation for his desperate need to clutch at lies, sweet illusions, which he wouldn't let crash down. Was it self-pity? In spite of numbness that had formed an all-engulfing black hole in his solar plexus a small part of him still desperately wanted to survive, the part carrying unexplainable craving for life, which hadn't shrunken even during the years of his capture. It would have been rational and thoughtful to cut out all of his hopes, to shut the door of possibility and convince himself he wouldn't see her again, finally accept the loss. However, he couldn't, although there was no doubt – a little hope that he had would gradually carouse him.

The seed of discrepancy was planted in his every thought. He carried on buying books, falling into pretense, and yet each time his fingers ran through the pages, mocking bombshells would burst under the vault of his skull, a sharp laughter paralyzing his thoughts.

Nights were the worst, as in their silence his fears spoke loudly, memories appearing out of nowhere and intending to hunt him down.

His mind circled around most vivid pictures from his past and he writhed in bed, entangled in sheets and rising anxiety, akin to a fly caught in a spider's web.

Every thought about her was like an intake of cold air slicing his chest.

Other than restless hours before a heavy sleep, he kept his consciousness shut for any kind of sentiment. In daylight he was a man with blank face.

Right now standing in front of her, he wears the same plain expression. He sees her digits slightly trembling due to excessive amounts of caffeine, a particular sight throws a decent punch straight at his stomach. He's overwhelmed with the flow of sickness , but doesn't indicate it.

The wailing sound in his head reaches crescendo. He can't take it anymore; he can't watch her spinning out of control, sinking into chaos, which persists in both of them.  
He's faster than she is, reaches for her cup, now filled with black poison, before she can take it.

"Enough coffee for you."

"What? Why?" Annoyance colors her voice and she doesn't even bother to cover it.

"You aren't well, Carrie."

"What are you talking about? I'm fine, perfectly fine." Nervousness twists her mouth viciously along with fine lines between her eyebrows. She's judging him. His words sound very much like utter nonsense to her. Fucking bullshit.

"How long it's been since your last rest? Five days without a sleep?''

He seems calm, while she tittering like a metronome, breathing soundly, throwing her arms in the air, trying to prove her point, convince him, convince herself, get through the thick tissue of delusional idiocy he's just thrown at her.

"It's my job! It's what I do, how I work! Don't you understand? I need this!"

She doesn't indent to continue with her explanation and define the meaning of "this'', perhaps it's all at once: her insomnia, rapidly pulsing consciousness, completely drained body. She doesn't want to stop, even though the turmoil's already usurped her sense of decency and sanity, it keeps escalating.

He ignores the reasons she pulls out of her mania box.

"You aren't coping, Carrie. You stay up for days, underfeed yourself, you can't even make a cup of coffee without spilling the damn thing all over the place. "

He bites his tongue, as finds himself sucked back into the day, he would gladly forget. Similarities are painfully obvious and still too close to his skin.

_They were standing outside the police office. He'd come only to make sure the only person interfering with his mission, threatening him would be eliminated. It would have taken a sacrifice of a Queen to end the chess party, which he did with a swift motion of his fingers that had their tight grip on Her. Back then the act appeared quite unavoidable, even clever. For a minute or two he was pleased with the fact that his tactics had worked out and he'd finally had an upper hand in their twisted intellectual wrestling._

Right from the spot he attacked her with accusations, although they were said without bile – more like he was sorry for her, yet there was unmistakable hint of disdain in his voice. He patronizingly pointed out she needed a serious treatment, albeit he understood the damage of the words, he had to cut short Carrie's further attempts to pursue her absolutely right suspicions about him.

He saw his actions as an unpleasant necessity, refusing to acknowledge his own emotions behind the fall of Carrie Mathison, which was orchestrated by him solely. His hands were smeared with her blood, however there was so much more than simply digging a wolf pit for his cabin lover on account of his own security. Deep down he felt betrayed, fooled, manipulated. She'd had him on the leash, lured him into verbalizing insecurities, ripping his chest open for the first time since the return, and then she'd flipped things upside down with her forced confession.

_So he carved an ever bleeding conclusion across the hemispheres of his brain – they'd faked it. With his freshly baked self-indulgent lies he could deny the closeness and intimacy he'd found with her. That weekend in the cabin she'd peeled all the protective layers off, as he'd allowed her to crawl inside him as far as she'd been eager to. It'd felt ecstatic to be completely bared, finally drop the pretense… and she'd sealed every millimeter of his skin with her lips, took him in her arms, __palpating__fragileness__ and heavy particles of a war only to tread his feelings down the very next day…_

Because of the mockery (he never dared to call it "betrayal ", the word tied to something personal and profound) he preferred viewing their intimacy simply as an act of sex, which still left him shivering both at the pleasure and the very real possibility of being revealed. In the dead of a night, while lying next to sleeping Jessica, he was often caught off guard by vivid and pretty inappropriate images. Once again his mind was playing against him, tempting him with memories he struggled to push back into the depths of unconsciousness. Behind shut eyelids he watched, as she leaned over him, her hair brushing tantalizingly against his chest and stomach, kissed down his torso, and then unexpectedly sank her teeth into his right hip, blowing him out of drunken haze. The mark had faded long ago, but the spot of skin, where her teeth had pierced him, prickled at the thought, at the remembrance.

_As if those flashbacks weren't enough, he experienced sudden rush of anxiety. He could hardly contain it, keep his mask firmly in place, devastating tides rippling through him, bubbling up to surface and __contorting__ his face. It took all of his willpower to keep his grimaces in check, maintain his polished demeanor for the public and the family. Emotions were a dangerous trap: he had successfully escaped one just in a nick of time and surely wasn't going to let anyone crawl under his skin once more._

Still something in him was rotting unresolved.

With his incredibly disturbed sleeping pattern, rising thoughts he'd put himself in a frying pan: what he skillfully repressed in the light of day, would eventually drive him into a corner as night approached.

He felt conflicted, shred into pieces.

_Three months after a failed attempt to blow the government, he yet again found himself in the presence of CIA, or more accurately one of its bosses. David Estes was leaving Walden's office, when a former marine ran into him. After a quick exchange of handshakes and a few politely cold phrases, David tossed his last card in hope he could clear general uneasiness looming over them. He came up with apologies, his eagerness to please quite palpable, making Brody mentally flinch: he desperately wanted that unfortunate conversation to be finished. Estes, sensing that his words might not sound convincing made a final move, bringing up the "Carrie issue", reassuring his companion that the raging lunatic was safely locked in a mental institution and receiving treatment, "ECT'', he specified. Brody detected strange stiffness in his jaw, clenched his mandible hard, wondering if he'd cracked the bone ._

His meeting with Walden was soon over and he felt relieved to fly home, his mind empty somehow.

_Twenty minutes later, with the TV switched on and barking across the living room the __uninventable__ had finally nailed him. The arrogant detachment of his, sharp-edged and carefully constructed, came tumbling down, sweeping away his composure on its course. His body gave up first, shaking violently, the howl of a primal and uncontrollable grief climbing up his vortex and dying on his tongue, some incoherent noises leaving his lips as though he was water boarded. His brain, however, was still disabled by the terror of realization, not willing to accept the reality, the fact. He, too, had been tortured with electricity, so he knew exactly how it must have been for her, even if a physical pain had been removed with anesthesia, there was so much more – the animalistic fear possessing every cell, the smell of death coating nostrils, the whole entity trashing and __flouncing__ helplessly in a grip of trepidation. The act itself so unnatural and horrific that it scarred memory.__  
Brody buried his face in his hands, his shoulders trembling. He'd ignorantly believed they would have given her common medication for her illness – nothing too extreme, and let her go, but it turned out , he'd sent her straight to Auschwitz. He felt drained, but the void in his thoracic cavity was no longer an empty space filled with indifference. It was satiated with thick and sticky guilt, that manifested a physical sensation of heaviness like his body had soaked up considerable amounts of mercury. He was sitting very still, unmoving, succumbing to the torrent of emotion he had been withholding for months._

Anguish trickled through the cracks of his demeanor , drenching his lower eyelids. He was surprised to catch a few drops with his fingertips – there was a strange sense of alienation, rising from the fact he couldn't comprehend his own reactions, that seemed so foreign, dissected from the rest of him, different parts sewed and stitched loosely with bitterness, but cruelly unbounded, the wholeness missing.

He heard footsteps approaching, the voices of Jessica and Dana, and immediately restrained himself, hiding dither behind his glassy irises, wiping away abrupt wetness with the back of his hand.

He has never tried to analyze his involvement in Carrie's capitulation after that sudden, mind-shattering catharsis, partly because it's looked like a pathetic attempt to seek atonement through self-flagellation, and the prospect had always disgusted him in spite of his propensity for masochism. However, they've been days, when he's believed that deeply rooted shame, chewing his insides, had been induced by her in order to control and manipulate him. She's had her clever hooks piercing him in the right places, and could have guaranteed his absolute obedience with a twist of her tongue, speaking those magic words of comfort, offering him her tenderness and affection.

He isn't sure if the toxic foam of his mistrust has truly faded or doubts about her sincerity might take him over again, but he sees her sinking deeper into a manic state and he's mentally wincing, almost panicking now, although he doesn't show unsettledness, as always he seems perfectly collected, in control.

She refuses to acknowledge any reason he gives her, it gets to a point she asks him to leave. This is when he grabs he phone from a kitchen table, causing her to stop dead in her tracks, last word dripping from her mouth, unfinished. Short impulses of fear and confusion quake her face, her lower lip trembles, her eyes wide-open , as she shortens the distance between the two of them, while her pupils are scanning him nervously.

" What are you doing?"

"I'm calling your sister. You're unstable, Carrie, and you need to get some help."

He tries to pick the right words that won't sound patronizing or arrogant like those he spoke in front of the police office. The last thing he wants to scare her off, drive her away from him by triggering a new avalanche of suspicions.

"Don't do that!"

She knows they're looking for a cleanup to throw her out, and since a part of her deal with CIA includes informing them about her mental condition and her possible "breakdowns"(she snarls at politeness they use like a dog collar on her), a single call from Maggie would be enough at least to take her off the case. In a view of her sister becoming her official supervisor, Carrie isn't so sure if Maggie would take a risk withholding any information, partly because of her loving and devoted heart (she would immediately demand termination of Carrie's mission for sake of her sibling's health), but also due to the fact that any kind of arbitrariness is intolerable in her line of work and anyone involved with CIA gets punished for it immediately. Besides, there's nothing to worry about, Carrie reminds herself. She's been feeling a little anxious lately, but it'll pass, it'll pass. She knows the difference, she has her feet firmly on the ground.

She just needs to convince Brody, rip paranoia, that has curled its greedy roots around each and every thought, out of his head. However as she vainly tries to lock her pleading eyes with his gaze, she suddenly hits a concrete wall. She surely hasn't expected to face the uncompromising stillness she'd became familiar with years ago, that dreadful morning in the cabin, when he'd uncovered her motives and her lies. His eyes radiate the same determination, the same opaque hardness, he won't back down, she realizes, and her blood runs cold.

He sees her mouth quivering, although she desperately tries to conceal her helplessness, not give up just yet, make another attempt to clutch his stubborn unwavering perception and smash it with perfectly carved reasoning, but the words she's intended to say, that have been clear , shining like magnesium flare just moments ago, are scattering away akin to an army of ants. And she's gaping wildly, robbed of her confidence, of her articulacy.

"It always about her work, isn't it?" he thinks, taking in her pitiful expression, bile welling, irritation seething under his cranium. Even if stakes are high, even if she gets shredded in the process of going after her numerous theories and bringing down the suspects , her freshly inflicted cuts do not bother her very much, she looks straight ahead, focusing on a strip of white light. She saw it back then, in the woods, and followed her newly found mystery, leaving him with his uncertain and blurred future. He wondered if he'd become a phantom for her, a dubious hologram, as she already lived in hypothetical reality with an ultimate battle for justice at its core. She chose Saul and Langley after all, and although he swallows this realization every time it makes its way into his head, twisting through the walls of denial, he also feels a chop of glass sliding up and down right behind his sternum, scratching, scratching so slowly, he can feel every inch. He squeezes his eyes shut in his need to avoid a particular sensation, his mind sucked dry by their argument. It's always there, the indifferent colossus of CIA, looming over them, and he hates it immensely.

"Here is the deal,'' he utters. "You take your meds and I won't call your sister."

She rolls eyes at him, but complies. She won't ask how he deduced her self-prescribed deprivation of antidepressants and lithium, because her bathroom cabinet is full of unopened yellow bottles, she's once abandoned.

The tension is growing.

**A**/**N**  
First of all, I would like to thank all of my readers for support and patience. I really appreciate you, guys!  
Secondly, even though I intend to continue with this story, next month I'm having my exams, so probably, you won't be hearing from me.  
Till the next time!


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four: Faro

Insomnia seems to sharpen her senses: the light caress of sheets, the feeling of his iron-hot fingers, pressed into her hip, the smallest sound in the silence of an early dawn, every sensation that shocks her numb body swirls around the void in her head. Spurred on by her mania she demanded they left the city and went to Faro, where she could escape the chaos and come to peace. The tension between them and his insecure ever watching eyes filled her with dread, anger and need to run away from hell she'd put them through, but her antics couldn't change a thing, really – she was trapped in wild currents of her equally dangerous and equally brilliant mind, there was no way out.

There still is no way out.

He's buried his face into warm flesh between her shoulder blades and clutching at her and she should be focused on the glow and the scent of his body, but she can't help it – she slides back into morass, her desperate grip on reality lessens, her perception is blurred. She wriggles out of his embrace so very carefully, avoiding waking him up, as she is led by a strange habit of a restless insomniac, she's developed through the years. She dresses quickly, although it's quite a task in a dim light of dawning (she loses balance few times), then runs downstairs and grabs her furry coat. She sees no point in leaving a note – she'll be back in ten minutes, she just needs to clear her mind, so that she could return to her analysis. Of course she could take a sleeping pill, it would knock her out, but its long-lasting effect wouldn't wear off easily and would eventually slow down the mental process – the last thing she seeks, while riding dying waves of mania.

The snow is deep, so she walks slowly, measuring her steps, her boots sinking into a white mess, while train of thoughts is rushing ahead, entering the past.

She, pretty unnerved and irritated, is sitting across from her new psychiatrist, a black woman in her late forties. Maggie insisted on psychotherapy – she said it would stabilize her, glue the shattered pieces together, driving a sharp smile from Carrie, as certainty of undeniable failure pulsed in her mind. The same skeptical grin touches her lips, as her shrink starts almost optimistically. Oh, she's full with enthusiasm, seeing endless possibilities, a happy ending perhaps? As for Carrie – they'd fried her brain once, it didn't do the trick, she nearly lost it in Beirut and then there was ''a little moment of weakness''. She feels shame slice her every time a handful of pills reemerges from abyss. She shivers with disgust and horror at the humiliating act of suicide, for the first time realizing how obscure her edges are. She senses a breath of fear on the back of her head, so very persistent, she has no idea who she is anymore and the thought breaks her brow with sweat. She wonders if the other can see it, too, if they can detect the abnormalities, sniff the madness. Maybe, one glimpse at her is enough, so that the psychiatrist has already drew a conclusion that those green-blue wells on her face had been muddied with death, formidable desire to quit existence. Carrie bites lower lip, suddenly very tense, anticipating the shameful truth from the lips of the stranger, however questions that follow are mundane, so she relaxes a little, going with a safe conversation, gladly giving up information which doesn't indicate any secret route to her core.

Then out of blue it happens, as if she's been shot, a verbal bullet flying through her skull.

"Your sister's told me you'd lost someone dear."

"Yes," – she mutters her lies again looking her shrink right in the eye just like she's been deceiving her family and colleagues with every word spoken, with each twitch of her nervously trembling lips. The untruth springs out of her mouth almost naturally now after she's been turned into a lie-producing machine, repeating the same story, the same teary expressions (her face hurts) nearly mechanically without missing a bit. She tries to distance herself from guilt or any kind of doubts, however in the dead of a night her guilty consciousness brings on its razors…¬¬¬

But now she needs her concentration to pull this off, so she ignores a familiar annoying tingling in her chest. Her pulse quickens a little, as prepares herself for the next question.

"I understand you're in pain, but we can't expect any improvement, unless we talk about your loss, Carrie," – the woman picks her words carefully, never breaking the eye contact, but her politeness seems unnecessary – she is fingering an open wound, purposely proceeding with torture:

"Tell me about him, the men you loved."

Brody's true identity has never been revealed during their session and Carrie can talk about an abstract lover, not the infamous delusional marine who bombed CIA, though strange thing happens – her thoughts are crawling away, her head is empty and she's gaping stupidly, finding herself out of words. She digs her nails into her palms, breaking the skin, a rush of pain rippling through her, as she believes a physical discomfort will make her think, shake her from a stupor, still it never happens. Her helplessness mortifies Carrie, she is forced to look at a blank nameless wall, the one that has carried an image of her lover on it not so long ago.

" I'm sorry, I can't. I have to go."

She storms out of the room, her cheeks flushed.

What the fuck just happened?

She runs her right hand through her hair even more annoyed than she was before. Her unexpected bad articulacy angers her. It gives an impression he is already fading from her memory, from her mind, it questions whether the thing between them was real.

He had told her once he believed she was obsessed with him. Has her dysfunctional brain created a phantom? Such possibility makes her double in half and her knees tremble. For the first time she sees them both through the eyes of her colleagues, Saul and Quinn, who had a strong conviction her relationship with Brody could be nothing else, but a codependent destruction, both ridiculous and ugly. A crisp and precise voice of her mentor hammers in a verdict, she's been afraid to consider even for a second: "You are not in love with him, you love the suffering. You throw yourself into extremes in order to feel, you crave to be moved, touched by emotion, so you cut yourself, that's why you're constantly drawn to him. The same works for him. They've driven up all the dignity out of Brody, they've fucked him up. He's used to torture and he clings to it so that he can break away from numbness – the thing which scares the two of you the most.'' She tries to defense herself against the harsh statements, but she's losing her battle. She's close to taking on their believes and making them hers, her intellect running in circles akin to a rabid dog, feverishly grasping not fully formed ideas, and shreds of remembrance, making some daring conclusions based on opinions that are not her own. However in whirls of panic her thinking slows down, coming to focus, when she finds a white-hot point of truth, which horrifies and fascinates her: she comes to a realization she no longer cares if her bond with Brody is truly a product of her ill mind. She could be clinging to an illusion, and he too, could be hypnotized by a fallacy, still the answer to the question leaves her cold. And she, who has crossed the line of sanity and lived in two worlds, the rational one and the absurd one, is freed by this insight and no longer feels frightened or doubtful.

She has carried her epiphany through many months of loneliness, isolation and it still burns brighter than ever after her reunion with Brody six days ago. She keeps her eyes firmly on the horizon, where the sea meets the sky, and calm fills her. It feels good to inhale and exhale slowly.

He wakes up. His breathing is shallow and loud in a small room and his shirt sticks to his damp skin. He should be grateful – he's just escaped a nightmarish world his brain pushes him into almost every night, however something feels not quite right, while he lays paralyzed, trying to catch his breath. Then it clings: he misses the warmth and the softness of her body. He gets up and throws on his clothes, then goes downstairs, calling for her, but his pleas are met by a disturbing quietness. He looks for her in every room, already frowning. Although he hates to admit it, he realizes she's probably left the house and immediately nervousness and guilt deluge him. He could have been a better nurse. He clenches his jaw firmly.

Outside the house he finds imprints of her boots in the snow and follows them eagerly. He can distinguish her silhouette in a dim light of morning and his heart is pumping blood feverishly as if seeking to jump out of his chest.

Her recent confidence and peace of mind seems to be seeping through invisible pores, leaving her being and she clearly senses the nameless feeling approaching like a heavy black foam. However, she tries to hold back her true emotions and greets him with a fake smile on her slightly glowing face.

"Have decided to take a morning walk?" he asks with a soft glint in his eyes and a silly grin on his lips – a carefree expression he wears, when happy.

"Yeah. I needed to gather my thoughts."

" How are you, feeling better?"

"Much better" she assures him, seizing his forearm, glaring into his electric-blue eyes then quickly drops her gaze to her feet.

She can't tolerate his genuine gentleness. She's damn sure she doesn't deserve it, 'cause she's betraying his trust. Again. She desperately wants to push his hand away, his worked fingers that are playing with golden locks at the back of her head. It's quite an itching need.

She manages to maintain her composure for long hours holding her worsening state of mind in check. While cooking dinner he opens up about his childhood and she's pleased this time she doesn't have to speak very often, only to show her sincere interest, which seems to be the only thing she doesn't intend to mislead him with. After dinner he takes a shower and just like that she is left alone with her chaotic emotions, a company she desires to eschew.

She tries to shake off the dread and the nothingness, as she is crushed under them, she can't move a slightest, can't breathe. She reminds herself a pinned insect, one of those poor creatures in glass boxes Maggie often brought home back in her teenage days. At the start of the agony, the insect kicks stubbornly, attempting to break free, but her efforts to focus on positive aspects, such as Brody reappearing in her life, lead nowhere, since she is swallowed and chewed by bleakness, spitted out eventually.

"Fuck, fuck" she squeezes her temples. She needs to mask her pathetic state just for a few more hours, to prolong her filthy play. For this last push she takes a bottle of wine and pours herself a glass. She licks her lips hungrily. Four or five good sips will put her together. With the sweetness wrapping itself around her tongue she recalls how Maggie used to call her bad habit of numbing her raging psyche with getting wasted a "self-medication." An obvious hint of sarcasm in those words always made her roll eyes dismissively.

She finishes her drink rather quickly and refills the glass. Oddly, she has no urge to cry, though she can't tell if the absence of tears should bother her or not. The one thing she knows for sure she is drowning, sinking deeper, possessed by a force which is greater than her tiny being.

Since the control over her own mind is absorbed and ripped away from her the lack of it scares her like nothing else, while she is tossed from side to side akin to a rag doll. She used to be so smug with herself, an expert in her job, she saw herself as almost a god-like figure exposing the darkest secrets and toying with classified information, unafraid of manipulation and ready to violate boundaries of any kind to access the object of her desire. After starting surveillance on Brody her ego had been boosted considerably – she smelled a real trophy, a perfect opportunity to make up for the 9/11. Somehow her mission of saving America had gradually transformed into a perverse reality show and she got hooked on it pretty easily, feeling like a secret master mind orchestrating the scenario. Her initial intention was to stay objective and distance herself from all the mess that was shaking the Brody's household and destroying a marriage of two people, who'd grown apart: a wife, who couldn't reach her husband in spite of her genuine love for him, a POW that still lived in that hole in Iraq even though he had returned home and reunited with his family. She tracked every move, each nervous twitch of the prey's mouth, watched him curled on the floor and shaking in the corner of the bedroom with cold dispassionate eyes. However, somehow she ended up being dragged under dark and seducing currents of his personality. Was it because it appeared to her she understood him profoundly, better than his spouse, his kids? There was something entirely wrongful about knowing intimately a person, on whom she was supposed to keep a close eye while maintaining a professional distance. Or was it because she was so engrossed with solving the mystery that her sexual attraction to him looked like a simple resolve to fill the gaps? The fact that her interest in him had gone beyond collecting necessary data came forth the very night she witnessed him jerking off in front of his wife. He was pushing Jessica away, although she'd implied her willingness to give them a chance, one more try . Concerning Carrie, she took the situation as personal challenge. How far she could go, how many walls of resistance and fear she could break inside herself? She needed to become immune to extremes, isolate herself from shame or shyness for sake of her own job. She'd seen them having sex or rather a very unpleasant parody of sexual intercourse. It shouldn't have been worse, and yet she was turning away, ripping headphones off her head. It all felt like a sharp slap. Still the same night, while lying in her own bed, she was disturbed by thoughts that were quite opposite to her earlier reaction , frustration prickling the hemispheres of her brain. She forced herself not to writhe, but was unable to block a flow of revelations which seemed alarming even for her. A voice at the back of her skull hissed she wasn't all that against an idea of watching a terrorist masturbate right before her eyes, as she preferred to believe. "You know, you actually liked it," flashed across her consciousness and threw a bomb on her. Her breath hitched for a second. Still fresh images of his blank face wearing a complete detachment of the Sphinx, along with his rigid posture and methodical movements of his hands, made her wonder if the act, which looked mechanical, even distressing brought him any kind of pleasure. Or was it just struggle for physical relief? Her brain lingered on provocative scenes longer than it was necessary, which peeved her immensely, made her trash in bed, throwing off a blanket, sit up occasionally, while running fingers through her hair. Her intellectual fixation on him abruptly mutated into somewhat twisted erotically charged longing, lurking under layers of denial and self-control, behind her focused ever-watching eyes. Maybe, it could be a delusional sense of power she was experiencing while studying Brody late at night, early in the morning, in his hours of loneliness along with strange bond which had been weaved between the two of them and endless mind games following later that injected Carrie with sex-drive for him.

Usually razor-sharp edges of perception have smoothed a little and a blissful foam of alcohol falls over like a veil separating her from sorrow which claws at her insides. She's been numbed and feelings roar back as if in a tunnel, only traces of them. She hears water being turned off and a soft rustling coming from the bathroom. She is quick to hide a half-finished bottle of wine in the fridge, before he strolls into the room.

She crosses her arms over her chest, avoiding his gaze, which of course immediately weeps a smile of his face and he eyes her suspiciously. Accidently his glare grazes the glass, she has forgotten to put away.

" What the fuck, Carrie? I thought we were done with secrets."

"I, I..," her grimace goes slack, deformed, ugly.

He hugs her tightly, pressing her stiff body into himself with all his might and searing pain, staring at the back of her head. She silently grows into him, rooting deeper, making the tightest bleeding knots that bind them.

She barely speaks these days, staying in bed for hours, not moving, her pupils focused on an invisible spot on the wall, her expression plain, rigid, as if carved from marble, never revealing a slightest emotion. Impulses of utter hopelessness and terror quake him, when he looks her in the eye and he's sucked back into that hole in Iraq, there's no one here, except for silence and hollowness, and he's scratching at the walls. So he averts her gaze, embracing her from behind, squeezing her waist, his palms roving over her back as though searching for something and then he withdraws his hands, completely embarrassed. She doesn't seem to notice.

He keeps himself busy, cooking, doing laundry, making sure she takes her pills. She complies without any grievances and her quiet acquiescence disturbs him even more. If she doesn't stay in bed, she moves slowly, walks like a somnambulist in some deep trance or sits by the window, her hands on her knees, always identical position.

Sometimes he believes the hellish labyrinth has no exit, so he prays passionately, he bargains with God, who has brought him piece, stitched a pot hole in his chest.

It feels like she has been buried under layers of the ocean, a sense of isolation. Life runs outwards, skirting her, while she's stuck in some timeless space akin to a frozen particle or a singular point that has been drawn outside the main scheme.

She wishes she could rationalize her agony, find the cause, it would give her strength, but she's deprived from her brain powers, the only aspect of human nature she used to rely on, and old tricks confuse her – she finds herself in a no man's land, helpless, pinned down by the tides, which overwhelm her till she's choking, gasping for air .

Her psyche recognizes Brody's presence as a flickering light in the dark, however she is too paralyzed to react which sets new sparks of anger. They fuel an insatiable flame that incinerates her from inside. Her intolerance for her own weakness triggers jolts of self-hatred which deepen old flaws and cause some fresh cracks in a white column of her dignity that craves for heaven despite being brought down hundred times.

Her memory reproduces fading faces of her past lovers. All of them nestle fear and disgust in their eye sockets, their lips cringed, as if they're fingering some unknown object, her, Carrie. Since depression has marked her they no longer descry the person, in their mind she's become shapeless creature that can't be categorized and it begets terror, irrational, animalistic.

Brody will leave her, too.


	5. Chapter 5

I would like to thank all people, who've reviewed the previous chapter. Your opinion really matters, so don't be shy to post your comments.

This chapter is M rated.

Chapter Five: _**Thirst**_

She watches him pray. He has already performed ablution, now standing, raises his hands up mouthing "God is Most Great", and she can't help it, but to feel a strange duality, when Arabic syllables spring out in a Northern landscape, as lively, noisy streets of Bagdad, burning intakes of a dusty air and sand in sandals arise in her memory. He continues the ritual, recites the first chapter of the Qur'an with hands folded over his chest and she tapes into tranquility that spreads from his sturdy posture. In spite of her atheistic views, somewhere deep inside of her she carries a purely intuitive knowledge of the vital force Islam has become for him, preventing the disintegrated pieces of his psyche from falling apart, fastening them unobtrusively like an invisible web. Simple graciousness of his moves consumes her thoughts: he prostrates on the ground, saying his prayers, then quietly rises to a sitting position, every movement measured, precise, yet not strained, his body submitting to the Divine along with his spirit – an observation that would bring out a sarcastic smile before, now seems so indubitably right to her. Her own faith has died long ago, perhaps, it hadn't been strong anyway, she'd always favored reason over ephemeral world. It was impossible for her to block her mind, buzzing with numerous questions, her intellect could deconstruct any religion, hitting at weak spots till the whole principle would collapse. She craved facts, analysis. Giving up on them and simply getting herself carried away with some doubtful beliefs and vague promises, trusting in someone who stayed in the dark of the unknown, neither showing his face, nor speaking, hiding behind unseen miracles and mystical revelations, equaled death for her. Her brain power kept her from falling over the edge right into the jaws of chaos, and just like that she knew she existed, she couldn't lessen her grip on it, a drowning feeling invading her immediately .

However, she isn't blind to other people's needs and realizing them she keeps her opinions to herself. She respects his faith, accepting it, as essential, irremovable part of his identity, so when he finishes his prayer, she greets him with a light peck on his lips, not a trace of judgment in her eyes. Small amusement crosses his face – he still feels sneaky about Islam: he has been lip-tight about it for so long and Carrie's acknowledgment comes like a rare blessing. She deepens her kiss to assure him he shouldn't be afraid of rejection, looping her hands around his lower back, freezing the moment and letting the realization to slip in. He has to know.

His breath quickens, he wants to aggravate an emotion, which bloomed in him, and breathe it into her, however she pulls back, looking him in the eye, whispering: "Thank you" under her breath. Without a doubt she gives him this shred of thought, not a sentence even, still she assumes he'll grasp what she's implying. Her throat constricts painfully at the mere idea of mentioning her humiliating lack of control, maniac outbursts and depths of depression. She's been disgraced, she hates powerlessness, being brought to her knees, her own weakness, delusional mind and raging madness repeal her, she can't see how somebody else could tolerate it and she doesn't allow herself to be fooled by optimistic expectations. She looks at him, frightened and confused, anticipating a blow. She's aware of the fact that getting kick in teeth from him would damage her permanently, she wouldn't recover with all of their mutual cords being torn, but instead of shattering revelation from his mouth, he traces her upper lip with a pad of his right thumb, bringing her closer with his left arm . For a beat of time her agitation is silenced.

After his morning prayer, she's been quietly observing while sitting on stairs and giving in into sinful delights of voyager (watching him has become her second nature, although these days there's no ill intention behind it), they are having breakfast. She's overly chatty, but what looks like a cheerful blubbering, is just another maneuver she is applying to avoid speaking about his family. She can tell the question has been dancing on the tip of his tongue for several days now, nevertheless regarding her unstable condition he's been sensible enough not to throw his concerns at her. So she continues with her verbal twists and turns, though her skillful manipulation leaves a bad taste in her mouth. She has to protect him from the truth, delaying unavoidable crash with reality, although her commitment reminds an outrageous attempt to catch a train while it's moving.

She opens up about one of her many crazy college adventures, however he can hardly concentrate, his gaze lingering on her mouth, then going down to the peaks protruding from the fabric of her white T-shirt. He wants to conceal his shameful mode of high distraction, and despite his best intentions, fails to tear pupils from her. The more he resists, the more he's drawn to her, his baser instincts incited by proximity of her body. Judging from her nipples pebbling through material, she wears nothing under her shirt and the rate of his heart jumps a little, when he pictures her naked flesh, mapped in his memory. The intensity of his current state surpasses the electrifying arousal which exploded in his cells the evening of their first time together. With all her winks and explicit flirting, he could hardly hold himself from making a scandalous proposition, and when a dizzying haze of alcohol had landed over his mind, the upsetting events of that day finally blurred, his focus narrowing to singular point, like rays of light in a tunnel. Robed off his perception and better judgment he barely understood he was heading for infidelity, or maybe he was not bothered with morals anymore. So when her breath with a hint of bourbon in it ghosted over his face it was just the end of a chain, because she'd been carefully implanting explosive particles long before he came in terms with his lust – her friendly smile in the pouring rain, her secretive eyes before Hamid's interrogation. The shells she had inserted detonated right on time, as the tension reached the breaking point.

Her foot making a slow route up his shin blows him out of semi-consciousness. His first reaction is to flinch away, but when he finally sobers up, Brody gives a playfully scolding look, trapping her ankle between his knees. She escapes his grasp easily, continuing with the tease, her leg sliding up and down his foreleg , her eyes not leaving his, irking him with obvious dare, when her foot climbs higher. He encircles her calf with his fingers before their improvised foreplay escalates any further, although it's not like he distastes inappropriateness she's implying – he intends to take the things slow, but who is he trying to fool? Eventually, he releases her leg on the floor.

"Come here"

He tracks her intently with a deadly serious stare, as she approaches, then when she's close enough, he pulls her in, locks his arms around her, forcing Carrie to lean forward. Her lips seek his mouth feverishly, coaxing them for a moment, but he wriggles out of her custody, mirroring back sloppy and chaotic strikes of her tongue and teeth, and even though her body is curled in awkward position, not for a beat she considers breaking their messy kissing. However after some moments of frustration, she manages to readjust herself on his lap, immobilizing him with her thighs.

As minutes of breathlessness and mindless tongue trusting pass, his mouth leaves hers and trails down her neck, scraping at her jugular vein with his teeth. It's such a cliché, still her eyes are rolling at the back of her head and he earns some more of her deep sighs. He snakes his palm under her loose T-shirt, drawing circles across her smooth skin, feeling sharp edges of her vertebrae, running up his digits and tracing her shoulder blades. Her upper body is pressed against him and her taunt nipples are brushing across his broad chest. He whimpers into a curve of her neck, helplessly crucified by this overwhelming pleasure. With rising dizziness he pushes his hand between their torsos, stroking the underside of her breast and she arks into him, as he thumbs pebbling tips of her bosom, pads of his digits tapping lightly, teasingly, then tweaking her nipples with tantalizing roughness that rips a sharp gasp out of her . Reciprocating she nips at his earlobe and tongues the shell, whilst bunching his blue shirt – the fact that he's still in his clothes annoys her, so she twists the fabric , till the ripping sound slices their breathy pretty indistinguishable dialogue.

His hand, which has been stroking her back, goes lower, making its way under the waistband of her sweatpants, now groping her buttocks. His unceremonious palming along with heated kisses and the warmth of his body arouse her to no end, so when he becomes bolder, toying with a strip of her thong, she can barely suppress an urge to slap him for naughtiness, though she can't deny it actually thrills her. She kisses him hard instead, grinding herself into him with such might that she hears chair creak beneath them.

He pulls away a little, in spite of her protesting.

" Can we graduate to bedroom sex?"

And just like that weekend in the cabin she doesn't know what to say or she thinks that stating the obvious doesn't fit the situation, so she lunches forward and wordlessly seals their pact with her lips, smiling.

When he starts to rise, her legs wrap themselves around his waist. He lifts her almost too easily since she has grown thin during her last episode of mania, and her lithe figure, her delicate bones cling to him with greediness, her nails already biting into his shoulders. He leaves the kitchen occasionally stumbling, slightly disoriented, as projector of his mind focused solely on her. Sharp nibbling of her teeth make him unaware of surroundings, while he conjures up a definite effect of swollenness her aggressive kissing will cause and the perspective doesn't displease him. He, who drifts somewhere between self-alienation, dread of rejection and chimeras from torturous past, instinctively craves this confirmation of their twisted union to be drilled into his body. Bruises, angry purplish marks already forming on his neck somehow happen to anchor him, infuse him with intensity, which wraps him in blinding white – he's tired of greyness, doubtfulness. He's been walking through a thick foam, he's neck-deep in his own mess and double-edged blades of rage stay hidden under layers of civilized behavior, shooting off forcefully and unexpectedly, throwing him out of balance. He's relieved to get away from bloody epicenter of himself, where different parts of his being shredding each other into pieces with insatiable viciousness. He's succumbing to hedonistic impulses, and impossible physical closeness with her ties him to a present moment, freeing him for a beat of time. He regains confidence, a sense of control.

As the heat grows and spreads, he realizes that a prospect of shagging her in the bedroom has lost its appeal – it's not enough for him, doesn't match his urgent desire, so he spins them around till her back hits the wall.

She is pinned between him and a hard surface, her breathing labored uneven. In spite of a nagging itch to tease him about a sudden change in their plan and his clear desperation for her, her eyes are rolling again and her intentions are out of the window, after he sets long sensual licks behind her ear, whilst his hands sneak under her garment, cupping her breasts possessively. Muffled sounds of approval escape her mouth and she digs heels of her feet in his lower back, bringing him closer, squeezing him in the grip of her own.

After a short, but exhilarating interlude he hungers for an intimates skin-to-skin contact with her, so he helps her out of her T-shirt, tossing it aside. His mouth immediately comes wandering all over her upper half, punctuating her skin here and there, like he's a glutton demolishing a candy shop. His lips cover every inch of her exposed chest, and she experiences a few burning stabs of unexplainable anxiety induced by his delicious misdeeds. She combs her fingers through his hair in order to get hold on him, however his skillful assault liquefies her limbs, and weakness fills them.

He senses a rumble vibrating in her thoracic cavity, as a half- sigh leaves her, and he runs his tongue over her right nipple to extort trembling sequences of her low moans, gluing his pupils with hers, and the most intensive stare they've ever shared, irks her so much more than simply direct caresses he's applying. He begins to suck on her pebbling flesh, and his unwavering glare arouses her immensely, explicitness of the situation magnified, and she indicates her own wetness leaking down her inner thighs.

"Fuck" she gasps, tugging at his short hair, extracts herself from a trap of his vulgar mouth.

She drops her feet on the floor from where they were curled around his torso and stripes out of her pants, now only covered by a thin strap of fabric. As if in reflex one of his hands loops around her waist, while another travels down her stomach and cups her between her legs. He traces curves and creases through silk which is positively soaked and clings to her akin to a second skin. She inhales sharply. She hisses. Her nails scratch his upper arms in hope of finding something she could grasp, while he continues undoing her methodically. His teasing unnerves her and doubles her frustration, due to the fact that his touches aren't satisfying enough to set her off, but keep her on the verge. He strokes her lightly, fingertips skimming the central seam of her panties, studying her, increasing pressure from time to time, moving back and forth however never quite giving her what she wants. Her arousal drenching his digits makes him all hot and painfully erected, a singular thought writhing within his brain, nevertheless he suppresses his own needs and slithers his distal phalanges under her thong. She curses some more and, chuckling, he gives a peck on her dirty mouth, then plugs his fingers in her warmth. Her bunch of fives encircles his wrist, holding him in place, while she starts riding his hand vigorously. He can't take his eyes from the spot where they connect, utterly transfixed. Jerky buckling of her hips comes across as the sexiest thing he's ever witnessed. He licks his lips hungrily, applying his thumb to her moistened clit, making her shiver with pleasure. He increases the tempo of his pistoning movements, vibrating her nod of nerves and his gaze switches to her flushed face. She's caught in her chase for release, her head tilted forward, her look unfocused, her hair streaming over her cheekbones, she's breathing noisily, grasps his right shoulder…

She feels she's nearing to her climax, as his fingerfucking roughens meeting her impetus: he slides his third digit inside her, coils it along with the other two, grazing the sweet knop which makes her knees tremble and her inner walls to spasm franticly. He takes her left nipple in his mouth and sucks on it, continuing with the assault, noticing drops of sweat rolling down her breastbone. His thumb and forefinger join his jaws occupying themselves with her right breast. His efforts a rewarded with a small tremor that crawls up her spine, she shakes uncontrollably. One last pump triggers her orgasm, squeezing a gulp out of her tortured lungs. While she recovers, revels in dying pulses, clenching his shoulder firmly, he gives her a few more soothing strokes, then withdraws his palm.

As desperate pleasure seeker as she might be, she starts to feel a little guilty, since he's been left neglected, while she's clearly enjoyed her ride (very much, indeed), so she rushes with a graceless, but immeasurably thrilling scrape of their tongues and teeth, which looks more like a carnal and predatory waft to swallow each other than affectionate gesture. And in a way it is: with them the deepest connection often slowly fades into mutual cutting, extensive bleeding, which has no appeal or a clinging aftertaste of sentimental romantics. When you manage get that close to another being, what starts as a caress often gets out of hand and evolves into invasive penetration. She believes she'd been punished for extracting his essence and knowing him like no one can, she'd been forced into his heavy atmosphere like some kind of cosmic matter and she's ended up being imprisoned.

Their kissing moderates and deepens. He runs his lower lip across her mouth and she catches it with her nippers and sucks it in. He grazes her chin, trying to curb her, but her fingers throw themselves at bottoms of his shirt, quick and carnivorous, they undo the whole row in less than thirty seconds. With a sigh of relief she snakes her mitts under fabric and fondles his lower back, but, then, as if changing her mind, moves them over his stomach. His muscles contract involuntary at her touch, he inhales briskly, his breath breaking into sequences of strained gasps, since he's running out of stamina, and, definitely, is not looking forward to embarrassing himself in front of her, exploding into his pants like some kind of a juvenile idiot. Tension in his abs smoothers, as she bunches his shirt and peels it off his arms and it pools at their feet akin to a snake slough. He lunges at her, trying to catch her lips, playing safe, however she cringes her neck and cocks her head, indicating she won't agree with another making out session, however tempting it could be. She breaks away slightly, her hands flying to his chest, trailing down, her eyes following the dance of her fingers, while she's caressing his skin carefully, as if reading Braille. Passing his navel, her fingertips reach the waistband of his jeans, unbuckling belt popping up the button and unzipping them.

"Carrie…" he mutters, tensed in his shoulders, but she doesn't listen and keeps on tugging on his pants, pulling them down, and just like that his resistance flies off the window. When the jeans are tossed aside carelessly, she kneels before him, her palms running up and down his sides. She clutches his briefs and they, too, wind up in the pile of clothes. His pulse speeds up at the promise, his digits sinking in her blonde hair and rubbing the back of her head. She strokes hard planes of his abdomen, toothes the skin just below his navel, making him grunt with quiet approval, and awhile later her lips pass lower swiping over his right hipbone. She raises her eyes at him, grasping his erection in her right hand and taking him in her mouth teasingly, then tracing the underside of his cock with her tongue, repeating the pattern a few times. She never was a big fan of blowjobs, but she finds him falling apart for her immensely erotic, the way he reacts to her touches triggers series of chain reactions, the sudden rush of neurotrasmitters washes over her like she's manic again, except for the fact there's a stinging itch right between her legs, so she moves her unoccupied hand there. She detects a change in his breathing: her masturbation turns him on, doesn't it? Her gaze returns to his flushed face: his dilated pupils, the thin, stubborn line of his mouth and flaring nostrils tell her the truth. She tongues the sensitive spot below the head of his rod that makes his knees tremble and his chest rise and fall uncontrollably.

All he can think about is the sweet sensation of her lips on him and her provocative posture. It takes all of his will to carry on with denying the blooming backfire in his loins and keep his reactions at bay. Nevertheless, despite his best efforts, his hips begin to jerk, when the fervor of her ministrations intensifies. She releases him for a moment, kisses and laps at protruding curves of his pelvis, feeling shivering, nestled deep in his bones. The bruises and scratches he'll be wearing tomorrow start to show, peeping from the shining surface of his skin, of an angry red color.

" Carrie, fuck, Carrie" he whispers, just as she renews her sucking, varying pressure and rhythm, and his hands fall off to the nape of her neck, twirling bangs of her hair, trying to find the unwavering point that he could hold on to, still she knows what she's doing, taking him apart with every spurring and scandalous slide of her mouth. She wraps her tongue around his cock firmly, tasting him, feeling him harden under her treatment. As another wave of pleasure washes over him and takes him to the brink, he realizes feverishly he won't last long. He pulls away, helps her on her feet and doesn't bother to conceal his impatience, when pushing her against the wall and invading her lips. He crooks his finger around the strip of her thong, easing her panties down her thighs, and her mitt join his, assisting him to strip her out of her last garment. She throws her thong aside, flings her arms around his neck and flushes their slick chests together. Their kiss lingers, there's no rush, which tends to take over them again and again, they're enjoying the simplest brush of mouths, slow, sensual kissing just like the day in the clearing. His runs his palm along her femur, securing it behind his back, she gets a hint and loops her other leg around his waist. He savors the heat emitting from her core, wanting to break the distance, looking down, where their hips meet and he's so close to her, still he delays the moment, taking his prick in hand and dragging it across her moistened folds, torturing them both. Protesting, her nails sink into the taunt flesh of his shoulders , she tightens her grip on him, getting her message straight. He winces a little, but not because he's taken aback by her assertiveness ( he actually welcomes a tingling pain in his upper limbs ), but due to the thrill her actions spark in him. Intensity which bursts in his brain – rare flicker of consciousness, combined with pulsing need in his groin makes him leave all the games behind and plug into her in one swift motion.

Her mouth drops open – he fits her, fills her perfectly, inflaming her from the inside, long, deep strokes rocking her into abyss and her face relaxes, somehow remains expressionless for the first seconds of their morning tryst. He buries his head into the crook of her neck, pierces her clavicle with his teeth, tasting her skin, his hips going back and forth smoothly, each movement controlled. His relentless pounding unleashes jolts of electricity in her loins, sweet, sweet prickling. She starts to moan, same low sounds from the back of her throat that make him mad with lust, so, when yet again his appetite for her is fueled by her husky groans, he hooks her under her knees and spreads her legs wider in order that he can thrust into her more forcefully. His drive has an immediate effect on her: her eyes glint with beams of a wild fire in them, she arcs into him and her legs clasp him firmly, trying to bring him closer, lock him in place, whilst greediness of a true hedonist gets its tentacles on her mind. She writhes frustrated, her craving for him or his engorged member never quite satisfied and this unfulfilled yearning makes her digits roam all over him anxiously. Her fingertips catch drops of sweat at the back of his head, then slither along his spine detecting more wetness. He's sweating profusely. She doesn't know why but random slick slide of their bodies heightens levels of her arousal, incites a delightful friction and her nipples stand out like bullets, when her chest grazes his. She wants more of this seductive rubbing, she embraces him, cages him with her limbs, cleaving to him with every millimeter of her glowing flesh.

With arms looped around his shoulders, she gives him a long daring stare, her head thrown back, their lips not touching. A smirk curls the corners of his mouth and he returns her a scrutiny, as intensive as hers, in the same time doubling his pace. She feels her body convulsing, as he drives into her, crushing his pubis with hers, stimulating her clit, sending her into frenzy with his powerful strokes. Her inner muscles keep tightening, vibrating, her climax approaching. Every muscle goes rigid, she anticipates the final explosion. She looks over his shoulder for the first time noticing a snowstorm howling outside, the white swallowing the landscape, and just like that he hits a knot of nerves which sets her off. She shivers as if from cold, keeps her eyelids closed, her arms fall loose around him…

Recovering from post-orgasmic bliss and even wincing from overstimulation, she pushes back, meeting his thrusts. He's a few seconds away from reaching his peak. She feels him swell, pulse inside her and with one last push he comes, shoots his seed against her womb.


End file.
